The secret to success has always been simple: follow the rabbit.
In New York band Hem’s case, make it a jack rabbit though,
not a white one.
Hem has found success in sticking to the roots of American
music, and producing a sound and image which purposely hearkens
back to a traditional, organic style of Americana.
Hem’s debut album, titled “Rabbit Songs,” has
garnered mild critical acclaim, and despite not coming out on a
major label, snagged the number one sales spot on Amazon.com soon
after its June release. To cap off a busy stateside summer, which
also saw the band put together an E.P. of covers for British
release and open up for Beth Orton around the country, Hem will be
playing an intimate show at Largo this Thursday.
Because Hem can only take four members of its eight-piece band
on the Orton tour, the Largo show will be old-fashioned, for a band
that likes its country music old-fashioned.
“I have a soft spot for all country music,” said Dan
Messé, the group’s primary pianist and songwriter.
“But, people who listen to Shania Twain don’t usually
buy our records.”
Messé’s influences run along the lines of Bob Wills
and the Carter Family, and “Rabbit Songs” comes through
as a record that relies more on the polish of the musicians than
the studio wizards. The band even chose the name Hem, an aborted
title for the song that became “Lazy Eye” off of
“Rabbit,” because the word brought an old-fashioned
hand-made connotation that Messé thought suited the group.
Hem’s music, which, according to Messé, is best
described as “haunted country lullabies,” relies
primarily on the prettiness of the simple country tunes Messé
writes augmented by sparsely lush strings and singer Sally
Ellyson’s soaring voice.
“A lot of this success has to do with having a
gift-from-god voice for a singer,” Messé said.
The formerly inexperienced singer Ellyson entered into the
picture by answering an ad Messé and guitarist Gary Maurer had
put out looking for a singer for a country project they wanted to
put together. Ellyson sent Messé a tape of herself singing
lullabies as she had no real demo, and the sound of Hem was
born.
Ellyson’s voice contains echoes of a richer Joni Mitchell
sound at times, as well as of female jazz vocalists. “Rabbit
Songs,” an always pleasant if sometimes undistinguished
album, succeeds best on the slower songs, where the music achieves
a comforting bittersweetness punctuated by Ellyson’s lulling
laments. Messé draws on the age-old idea that songwriting is
best when it comes from a dark place.
“Anytime there’s something really sad in the art,
the fact that it exists makes whatever sadness worth it,”
Messé said.
But Hem’s place in its self-imposed traditionalism appears
in jeopardy. The band has enough new material for a double album,
half of which Messé says is in a much more pop-oriented
strain. According to Messé, the band is like a family, and he
has just started a family of his own recently marrying and having
his first child. This success in life and art is Hem’s dream
come true, but it certainly isn’t playing out
melodramatically like a Johnny Cash or Hank William’s
biography.
“I’m not a particularly happy person,”
Messé said. “But I’ve been in a happy place, and
I’ve always worried if you get too happy you’ll start
writing shit.”